1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to identification information validation and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for validating identification information without storing user identification information within an identification management system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In using various services available through the Internet, a user's identification many times, needs to be validated before providing certain information or services to the user or other requester. Upon a user providing user identification information, i.e., an identity claim, the service provider requests validation of the claim using a third-party identification management (IDM) system. The third-party IDM system is provided the identity claim to enable the IDM system to validate that the user information is correct. Such validation is generally facilitated by the user initially performing an enrollment function that collects the user's identification information that will be used to access services on the Internet. This information is generally encrypted and stored within the IDM system. Such storage of large quantities of user information presents a substantial liability risk to the third-party IDM system. Compromise of the security of the IDM system would be disastrous to the IDM system business as well as result in a compromise of the user information of many users.
To avoid storing substantial amounts of user identification information, some IDM systems require the user to provide identification information each time a transaction with a service provider is to be conducted. Although the user's information is not stored, a substantial amount of time is required to validate a user's information at each transaction. Furthermore, the cost of performing a validation at each service provider transaction is generally borne by the IDM system owner which increases the cost of providing IDM services.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus of providing secure, rapid, and cost-efficient claim validation.